Oregon Baseball Sweeps Gonzaga

The Oregon Ducks swept their two-game series against the Gonzaga Bulldogs on Wednesday in much the same fashion as they did on Tuesday, putting up runs in the later innings to come out with a 10-5 victory.

Turner Spoljaric took the mound for the Ducks, and after giving up a three run homer in the first inning he settled down to pitch scoreless innings through the fifth.

With the Bulldogs initially up 0-3, Oregon scored two in the bottom of the second inning to close the gap. After a double steal to get runners on second and third base, Gavin Grant brought them home with a single to left field.

The Ducks went scoreless in the third and fourth innings before taking the lead in the fifth. Bryce Boettcher walked, reached second base on a balk, stole third, and a Rikuu Nishida sacrifice bunt scored Boettcher for the tying run.

Before Nishida’s bunt, Gavin Grant walked and came home for the go-ahead run off a Drew Smith single.

Oregon’s bullpen of Logan Mercado and Matt Dallas kept the Zags off the board through the eighth inning, while Oregon trickled in runs before sounding off with a four run eighth inning that put them up 10-3.

Before that, in the seventh inning, Drew Smith popped off the first home run of his college career:

In the eighth, Josiah Cromwick lead the scoring off with a solo home run.

After Bryce Boettcher hit a double and then stole third base - again - Gavin Grant singled to bring him home, notching his fourth RBI of the game in the process.

Nishida singled, putting Grant on third, and then Grant scored on a wild pitch. Drew Smith scored Nishida on a ground out to give the Ducks a substantial lead, 10-3.

Gonzaga scored two in the top on the ninth off reliever Logan Olson, but the margin was too great to overcome, bring us to our final score of 10-5.

Turner Spoljaric (4-0) picked up the win. Gavin Grant had a great day at the plate, going 3-3 with four RBIs. Drew Smith was 2-5 with three RBIs.

The competition level goes up considerably this weekend, as Ducks baseball hosts the #12 Arizona State Sun Devils. The first game is Friday, 4/28/23, at 5:05 PT.